Wherever Monsters Dwell
by HopeBayer
Summary: Dean and Sam meet a mysterious new woman that could possibly tear the brothers apart and maybe even spell their deaths. Dean/OC Sam /OC (Rated M for sexual content and strong language) Story is based around season 2.


It was days like these that made Alexa Crawford question everything. Why she was doing all of this, would there ever be an end? And if there was, when she came to it would there have been a point to everything? To the hunting, the loneliness, coming within an inch of death every day, carrying more dark secrets with her in her twenty-three years of life than a hundred people would see in their lifetimes.

Sometimes she hated being a hunter, but she also knew that she would never be able to live the life of a "normal" person. Hunters had tried in the past and it always ended in blood. There were just too many enemies out there that targeted hunters for them to ever be able to get out of the life. Unless they killed themselves. Which wasn't very uncommon.

As a rule, Alexa tried to stay away from alcohol. She liked to stay sharp, because she had a lot of royally pissed-off supernatural enemies that would love to catch her when her guard was down, but tonight she made an exception.

Let them come if they wanted, she didn't truly care. At this point she was failing to see any reason to keep fighting. So she pulled over at the nearest bar and went in, finding a nice dark corner where she could drown herself in peace. Forgetting her daily life, though, didn't seem to be in the cards as she watched two young men enter, and not noticing her, sit down at a table near her.

She examined them, letting herself take in how attractive they were. She didn't pay much attention to men unless she really wanted to forget herself and have some fun, which wasn't a common occurence, but tonight she thought she might like to. And either of them would do.

She was about to go and talk to them when she picked up their conversation.

"-you think it's a werewolf?" the shorter one was asking. "The moon cycle isn't right."

"I know that, but everything else besides that points to it," the other said, reading something on a laptop he had brought in. "The violent disappearances, the howling that people have been hearing, the way that when those kids were attacked, it ran off when they cut it with that silver knife. I mean, by the way it sounds it wasn't even a very deep cut, but for a werewolf-"

"It could be deadly," the first guy finished.

Alexa was slightly taken aback by having come across other hunters. In her long years doing this job, she had only met a select few, most of them old men that didn't even hunt anymore but barricaded themselves in their homes and wrote in old journals all day, studying the supernatural. Most of them supplied her with what she needed for hunting, but never did anything beyond that.

She had only ever met one other active hunter, and he hadn't been far from becoming the kind that locked himself in some sanctuary and scribbled away all day obsessing over the creatures he had faced.

"Dean," the tall guy said, nodding in her direction and she suddenly became very interested in her drink.

Dean, as she assumed he was, turned to look at her.

"Hi," he smiled. "You probably heard us talking-"

"About werewolves?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. She decided to give them an out. "Are you writing a book or something?"

"Uh, yeah," Dean smiled and leaned against the bar beside her. "We're...science-fiction writers."

"Oh, have I heard of you?" she wondered, sipping her drink and still entertaining the thought of getting a motel room with one of them.

"Well I never said we were good writers," he smiled. "I'm Dean, this is my brother Sam."

"Alexa," she shook his hand. "So do you need to get back to your writing, or can you have a drink?"

"Dean, we really should get back to the motel," Sam said and she knew she wouldn't be having any fun with him that night.

"You go," Dean said, tossing his brother a set of keys. "I think I'll keep this beautiful lady company for awhile."

His brother rolled his eyes and packed up his laptop, leaving in a huff.

"He's a bit stuffy," Dean grinned.

"But you like to have fun?" Alexa asked, wondering what sex with another hunter would be like. She had been told more than once that she was rather intense in bed and wondered if this was a quality shared by all monster hunters.

"I sure do."

"There's an empty lot around the corner," she said. "I think you would like my car."

Dean felt his jaw drop when he saw the '66 mustang Alexa was unlocking.

"This is your car?" he asked.

"That's why I have the keys," she smiled, leaning against the door. "This car is great for picking up guys."

"So you fool around with guys in your car a lot?" Dean asked, stepping up to her and placing his hands on her hips.

"No," she said, wrapping her hands around his neck. "Very few guys get into my pants, and even fewer get into my car."

"How many have gotten into your car?" he wondered, tensing when her lips ran across his neck.

"You," she said, pulling the door open. "Want to drive it?" she dangled the keys in front of him.

"Yeah," he grinned, taking the keys.

She slid inside and he climbed in with her. When he started the engine, Lynyrd Skynyrd poured out of the radio and he fell in love.

As soon as Dean parked the car, hidden behind some trees on a side road, Alexa climbed into his lap, swinging a leg over him to straddle his lap. He groaned when she began to grind her hips against him.

When her lips pressed to his, he felt something rise in him, from the pit of his stomach all the way to his chest, radiating throughout his entire body. He ran his hands up her shirt, and she sat back, shrugging out of her jacket so he could pull her tank top off over her head. He admired her body, wondering if he had ever been with a woman who had such a perfect figure.

And it wasn't just her body that amazed him. As they explored one another, rolling around on the cramped seat, he was entirely absorbed in her, in the sensations and feelings she elicited in him. He had been with his share of feisty women, but Alexa was something else. There was something in her that he felt himself connect to, a desperate need that they both succumbed to, devouring one another in their passion.

Dean had never been so lost in someone.

"Finally," Sam complained as Dean wandered into their room nearing three in the morning. "What the hell did she do to you?" he sputtered; his brother looked like he had been in a fight with a very angry vampire. Or ten.

"Dude," Dean collapsed on his bed. "That girl was...I've never been with a girl like her."

"Are those bite marks on your neck?" Sam asked.

"Yeah," Dean said.

"They're bleeding."

"I know," Dean ran a hand over his face and looked at his brother. "I think I love her."

"What are you talking about, you just met her and...where did you even have sex, you're clothes are wrinkled."

"In her car," Dean said. "Sam, she's freakin' amazing. She has a '66 mustang fastback. And she has all these old cassettes of the music I like and some chick crap, I don't know, but she even keeps a .44 revolver in her glove compartment. And shit dude, I have never had sex like that-"

"Dean I do not need to hear about your disgusting car sex," Sam interrupted him again. "You just met this girl!"

"I don't know Sam," Dean shook his head. "This girl is something different. I'm seein' her again tomorrow."

He stood and walked - or rather limped - over to the bathroom.

"We're on a job, Dean," Sam said.

"I can make time," he said and ignored his brother, closing the bathroom door on him.

Sam sighed and rolled his eyes.

After Alexa dropped Dean off at the motel, she rented a room at another one a few blocks away and got to work. If what they were saying about the werewolf was true, then this town had a serious problem. A wolf that followed the moon cycle was dangerous, but one that shifted at any time was a nightmare.

Werewolves that only changed on a full moon were generally just unsuspecting men and women that couldn't control their blood lust one day out of the month and died by a silver bullet to the heart, but there was another kind.

They were rare and she had only encountered one once and it continued to be the most monstrous thing she had ever faced. And the hardest to kill.

They could turn whenever they wanted, day or night, no matter what the moon cycle was like, and were conscious while in their wolf form, unlike cycle wolves that became entirely animatistic. And they never stopped. Only a direct hit to their heart would kill them, but that was nearly impossible as their rib cages were almost impossible to penetrate and even then you had to cut them to pieces and burn them just to be sure.

The only reason Alexa had managed to kill the last one she had encountered was because it was centuries old and even then she hadn't come away unscathed. There was a scar, spanning her entire back from her right shoulder to her left hip, where it had split her open with one swipe of its claws. It had punctured her kidneys and damaged her spine, almost taken away her ability to walk. She had been in a wheel chair for over a year.

She couldn't let those boys go into this without knowing what they were facing. She wouldn't let them.

"So what did you find out about this wolf?" Dean asked as he exited the bathroom, a towel around his waist.

"There's not a lot on wolves that don't follow moon cycles," Sam said, still trying to find something on the internet. "There are some stories, speculations, but I can't really find anything that seems like it could be true - dude, what the hell happened to your back?"

"Oh," Dean looked over his shoulder into the mirror over the dresser and smiled when he saw the long, deep scratches running down his back. "Yeah, I told you that girl was something else. They stung like a bitch in the shower, though."

"Dean, she injured you more than most of the hunts we've been on," Sam said.

"I know," Dean grinned.

"You keep seeing her and you're not going to be fit to go on this hunt with me," Sam commented.

"Will you relax," Dean asked, pulling on a pair of briefs and collapsing onto his bed. "I think you could use a night with someone like her. Not her, because she's mine, but someone like her."

"I really don't need weird car sex where I come away partially mutilated," Sam said dryly and Dean laughed, turning off the lamp and leaving Sam only the light of the computer.

"When we catch this thing, I'm going to slit its freakin' throat," Dean said as he and Sam stood behind a police barricade, watching them pick up pieces of what was left of the werewolves latest victim.

"Dean," a voice said them behind, causing them both to jump. Alexa smiled.

"Hey," Dean put an arm around her, turning her away from the gruesome scene. "You don't want to see this."

"What happened?" she wondered, looking over her shoulder. "Was someone hurt? Hi Sam."

"Hi," he gave her a tight smile. "They said someone was attacked by some sort of wild animal."

"What sort of wild animal tears someone to pieces like that?" Alexa wondered. "They don't even have anything big enough in this area to cause that."

"Maybe it was a dog or something," Dean said, looking at Sam.

"Well I hope they find it," she sighed. "Before this happens again."

"Me too," Dean said.

"Hey, Bobby," Dean said when the other line picked up. "Listen, we're working this job near Lake Tahoe and we're not really sure what we're dealing with here. We think it's some sort of werewolf, but the thing is that it's not following the moon cycle."

Bobby swore on the other end.

"What is it?" Dean asked, looking at Sam.

"Wolves ain't exactly my area of expertise, Dean, but I know enough to tell you that a wolf that doesn't follow the moon cycle is a dangerous creature," Bobby said. "Never faced one myself, but I know a hunter who did a few years back. Barely got away with the ability to walk, and that was only because the wolf was practically ancient. You're dealing with something monstrous, son, far beyond anything you've dealt with before."

"Well who is this person, can we talk to them?" Dean asked.

"Well last I heard they were in your area, I'll try to get you guys in touch," Bobby told him.

"Thanks Bobby," Dean said. "Oh, what's his name?"

"It's not a him son, it's a her," Bobby said and Dean raised his eyebrows. "Her name's Alexa Crawford. Let me find you her number."

"No need, Bobby," Dean said with a frown. "I already have it."

"What is it?" Sam asked when Dean hung up.

"Bobby knows someone who's dealt with this kind of wolf before," Dean said.

"Well did he give you their number, who is it?" Sam asked.

"Alexa Crawford," Dean said.

"Is that her car?" Sam asked, pointing to an old black mustang in the parking lot of a motel.

"Yeah," Dean and pulled in, parking next to her.

As they climbed out of the car, one of the rooms opened and Alexa smiled at them. She tilted her head for them to follow her into her room, then closed the door behind them.

"Bobby called," she said as they took in her room, which looked an awful lot like theirs only with more papers pinned to the walls and books scattered around.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Dean demanded.

"The same reason you didn't tell me, I expect," she said, going to her bed where she had been cleaning a pistol and picking it up again.

"But you knew that we were hunters," Dean said. "You heard us talking about this wolf in the bar and you acted like you didn't know what we were."

"I wanted to make sure I knew what it was before I decided to help," she said. "If it was a regular wolf, I was going to leave the two of you to it."

"You still could have told me," Dean crossed his arms, looking at some of the things she had on the walls.

"Dean, you know as well as I do that people not knowing what we are is the best way to do our jobs," Alexa said calmly. "No matter if they're another hunter. In this line of work, you need every advantage you can get."

"So what are we dealing with here?" Sam wondered, sifting through some of the papers and books on the table by the window. "How do we take this thing down?"

"Well that's the tricky part," Alexa said, eyeing Dean who had his back to her. "These things are almost impossible to kill."

"Won't a silver bullet to the heart work?" Dean asked.

"It will, but firing at its rib cage is like firing at an armored car," Alexa told them. "The only way to get to its heart is by getting under the rib cage."

"Bobby said you've killed one before, how did you do it last time?" Sam wondered and Dean looked at her.

She stayed silent for a moment as she cleaned her gun.

"Alexa," Dean snapped her out of her thoughts.

"I had to make it think I wasn't a threat anymore," she started quietly.

"How?"

"By letting it cripple me," she said. "I had to make it confident that I was no longer a threat to it so it would come close enough for me to get under its rib cage."

"You purposefully sacrificed yourself just to kill it?" Dean asked, almost angry.

"And you two have never done the same?" she raised an eyebrow at him.

"How did it injure you?" Sam wondered.

Alexa set down her gun and stood; gripping the hem of her t-shirt, she turned and pulled it up far enough in the back so they could see the gruesome scar spanning the skin there.

"I was in a wheel chair for fourteen months," she said, pulling her shirt back down. "It damaged my kidneys too, I just about died from that alone."

"How did I not notice that last night?" Dean wondered aloud.

"I think you were preoccupied," Alexa smiled and Sam made a face of disgust.

"So why doesn't this thing follow the regular cycle?" Dean asked.

"I'm not sure, I've been trying to figure that one out for years," she said.

"What else do you know about it?" Sam asked.

"Well not only is it not restricted to the moon cycle, it has control over when it shifts," she told them. "It can changed any time it wants, day or night, and change back just as easily. And also unlike a regular werewolf, it keeps its mind while in its wolf form. It's entirely sentient. That's part of what makes them so deadly, is their intelligence. A regular werewolf is easy to lure into a trap, because it's operating on baser instincts, but this thing is smarter than to fall for any kind of trap we could set for it."

"Would it be easier to kill if it was in human form?" Sam queried, sitting at the table and burying his nose in the papers she had there.

"I've wondered that, but I'm not sure," Alexa responded. "They're hard to find in their human forms, they know how to cover their tracks. The last one I took down I never saw as anything but the wolf."

"What is this?" Dean asked, pointing to a drawing on the wall.

It looked like a wolf, but it was twice the size of any wolf he had ever seen and was standing on its hind legs. It had teeth that were three inches long each at least and claws that looked like knives.

"That's what they look like," Alexa said. "At least, that's the one I faced."

Sam stood and went to look at the drawing with his brother.

"You killed that thing?" Dean turned back to her. "By yourself?"

"Not entirely," she said. "There was a hunter I met about a month before I found the wolf that helped me dig up some information on it and prepare to fight it. He was going to help me with the fight, but something came up with his family, I don't know. I haven't seen him since then."

"How long ago was this?" Sam asked, looking a little sick.

"About two years ago," she said.

"This hunter..." Dean said slowly. "Was his name John Winchester?"

She looked at them.

"Yeah, you know him?"

"He's our father," Dean said.

"Oh," she breathed. "Now you two make sense."

"I think I know why he couldn't help you," Sam said, sinking into a chair again. "Two years ago I left for college. Dad came home early from a hunting trip to stop me."

"Yeah, what did you study?" Alexa wondered and Sam gave her an odd look.

It was such a strange question when he had just revealed that he was the reason she had almost died, had almost lost the ability to walk.

"Pre-law," he told her. "This doesn't bother you?"

"What?" she wondered with genuine curiosity, looking up at him.

"That I'm the reason you had to face that thing alone," he said.

"Oh," she said. "Why would you think that? You didn't do it on purpose, I'm not going to blame you for wanting to go off to college just because you indirectly affected my life. And besides, things turned out okay. Besides this hideous scar, I got away pretty clean."

Sam looked at Dean, who shrugged.

"How are we going to find this wolf?" Dean asked to change the subject.

"Well even though they can change during the day, they're generally more active at night. They have human lives during the day, the one I killed even had a wife and kids. They treat their family like their pack, they're extremely protective and would never hurt them. So if we can find this wolf's family, we'll find him," she said.

"So what do we look for?" Sam wondered.

"A group of people that haven't been affected by any of the attacks," Alexa said. "This is a small town and pretty much everyone knows one another and has some sort of relation, but there will be a family with a certain radius of safety around them. Since the wolf is so protective of its family, it will refrain from hurting anyone important to their family members as well. Like say if he has a daughter, it will try not to hurt her friends, but it may go after her friend's parents as it doesn't directly harm her. We need to find these people."

"Well there have only been two attacks, that's a pretty broad scope," Dean said. "Can't we just catch this thing in action?"

"Trust me, you don't want to," Alexa said, putting her gun back together. "It's almost impossible to predict its moves anyway until we know who its family is. I hate to say this, but the only thing we can do is wait for more attacks."

"So what, we sit on our asses and wait for people to die?" Dean demanded.

"I don't like it either Dean, but you have no idea what we're dealing with here," Alexa told him calmly, dropping bullets into her pistol's chamber. "Our best chance at beating this thing is finding it while it's human and taking it down then. And we don't just have to sit here and do nothing, we can still ask around, see if we can find anything about its family, but this thing is smart and fast and great at hiding. I wish we could do something else, but we can't just go lurking around the town at night with a gun full of silver bullets, hoping to find it. Our best defense against it is it not knowing what we are and what we're doing here, so we need to lay low and cover our tracks until we can corner it."

"She's right, Dean," Sam said somberly.

"I'm not letting it hurt someone else if I can help it," Dean said stubbornly.

"Dean, if you don't work with me and try to take the damn thing down on your own, you're going to die," Alexa said, getting to her feet. "I'm trying to help. Do you think I like sitting in my hotel room, waiting for someone else to be attacked? No, but there's not much to be done for it. If you don't want to follow my plan, if you don't want my help or advice, I'll leave town right now and you can try to take it down on your own, but I promise you that you will die and then you won't be able to help anyone."

They glared at one another for a few minutes and Sam expected Dean to walk out and try to track the wolf down on his own, but was surprised when his brother, the most stubborn person on the face of the earth, backed down.

"Fine," Dean growled.

"Fine," Alexa snapped.


End file.
